The Czechoslovak frame-up trials and the U.S. Communist Party : with Jiri Pelikan's appeal to Angela Davis, and statements by the Australian, Dutch, and Italian CPs

with Jiri Ffelikaris Appeal to Angela Davis

and Italian CPs

by Caroline Land

$.35/£.15

INTRODUCTION

On August 11, 1972, the Czechoslovak regime headed by Gustav Husak
completed the frame-up trials of 46 persons identified with the 1968
Prague Spring' and with subsequent work in the movement to extend
democratic rights. I for , this work the activists—most of whom are so¬
cialists or communists-were charged with attempting to overthrow the
state, circulating illegal printed material, and other crimes. Western Com¬
munist parties had already been divided over Moscow's invasion of
Czechoslovakia m 1968; after four years, the issue of repression in
Czechoslovakia continued to divide CPs, affecting even those most ac-
customed to toeing the Kremlin line.

In Fe . br „ ary 1972 > the French CP sent Roland Leroy, a member of its
Political Bureau, to Prague. Husak assured Leroy that "the time of pre¬
fabricated frame-up trials has definitively passed.” But when these trials
began to unfold, the CGT (Confederation General du Travail —largest
French trade union formation, dominated by CP) recalled Husak’s as¬
surances in an Executive Committee statement dated August 2, 1972:
The current trials, whose political character is obvious, contradict these
assurances. The CGT vigorously deplores the trials." The British CP
protested in an editorial in the August 10 issue of its organ the Morning
Star that the charges against the defendants arose from political differences
and "should be dealt with by political means and not by trials and im¬
prisonment." The Norwegian CP also lodged a protest with the Czecho¬
slovak regime Other CPs strongly denounced the frame-up trials, in¬
cluding the Australian, Dutch, and Italian CPs, whose statements are
reprinted here from the October 30 issue of Intercontinental Press.

Meanwhile, the U. S. Communist Party has distinguished itself as among
the most ardent supporters of the repression. The "Appeal" by Czecho¬
slovak communist Jiri Pelikan (formerly a prominent member of the
CP and director of Czechoslovak TV, now living in exile), also included
in this pamphlet, was addressed to Angela Davis in an effort to gain
support for the victimized activists from her and other CP members in
the U. S. Although Davis has made no public response, the September
29 and October 3 and 5, 1972, issues of the Daily World (organ of the
CP) ran three articles by Erik Bert denouncing Pelikan's letter and at¬
tempting to justify the repression. The two articles by Caroline Lund
(from the October 27 and November 3, 1972, issues of The Militant,
a socialist newsweekly) answer Bert’s charges and outline the Marxist
position on workers' democracy.

CONTENTS

Introduction 2

CP Defends Political Persecution, by Caroline Lund 3

Was 'Prague Spring' Antisocialist? by Caroline Lund 5

Appeal to Angela Davis on Behalf of Political
Prisoners, by Jiri Pelikan 7

Western CPs on Czechoslovak Trials u

Printed in 1973 by Pathfinder Press, Inc.
410 West Street, New York, N. Y. 10014
Manufactured in the United States of America

CP DEFENDS POLITICAL PERSECUTION
by Caroline Lund

In its Sept. 8 issue The Militant re¬
printed an open letter to Angela Davis
from Jiri Pelikan, a Czech Commu¬
nist expelled from the party for his
role in the 1968 reform movement
in Czechoslovakia. The letter appealed
to Davis for support to Czech polit¬
ical prisoners. Previously, The Militant
had reported on, and condemned, the
series of frame-up trials of 46 dis¬
sidents held in Prague and Brno,
Czechoslovakia, this summer.

In response to The Militant's cham¬
pioning of the democratic rights of
these dissidents, the U. S. Communist
Party has let loose with a series of
three articles in its paper, the Daily
World . One of the articles tries to de¬
fend the trials held this summer, and
the other two —entitled "Czechoslovak
emigre cuddles Trotskyists," and
"Czechoslovak revisionism and
Trotskyism" —are direct attacks on
The Militant and the Jiri Pelikan
letter.

Accusing The Militant of falling "into
bed" with "Czechoslovak revisionists"
"in the anti-Soviet brothel," the series
comes complete with a cartoon of a
CIA agent —supposedly representing
the politics behind Trotskyists and
Czech "revisionists" like Pelikan.

These articles—which come from
one of the few Communist parties in
the world that uncritically supported
the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czecho¬
slovakia—contain the crudest distor¬
tions and lies about the views of
Trotskyism, the views of the Czech
dissidents, and the character of the
1968 "Prague spring."

First of all. Daily World writer Erik
Bert accuses Jiri Pelikan —now living
outside Czechoslovakia because of po¬
litical persecution —of being part of
"an anti-socialist espionage network."
The evidence? Pelikan apparently con¬
tinued to maintain communication with

Communists in Czechoslovakia after
leaving the country in 1969 and was
able to get some material fiom them
published in the West.

Pelikan had been a member of the
Czech Communist Party from 1939
until his expulsion in 1969 for sup¬
porting the 1968 reform movement.
He was elected to the CP central com¬
mittee by the 14 th party congress,
which was held secretly in a factory
only hours after the Soviet invasion
in 1968. Only the most cynical Stalin¬
ists will believe the accusation that
this longtime Communist is involved
in "anti-socialist" activities.

Actually, the Daily World is not con¬
cerned about any "anti-socialist" ac¬
tivities. Rather they fear Pelikan's
activities as a communist attempting
to make known the real views of dis¬
sident communists inside Czech¬
oslovakia.

The same is true of the 46 dissi¬
dents tried this summer in Czecho¬
slovakia. All of the leading defendants
are Communists — not "anti-socialists"
— and many of them were leading
party functionaries.

The Daily World tries to say that
these trials were not political trials —
that the defendants are simply crimi¬
nals who carried out acts in violation
of Czech laws. But let’s look at what
those acts supposedly were.

The charges, as summarized in the
New York Times and New York Post,
included "preparing, circulating and
mailing abroad illegal printed matter,"
mimeographing and spreading "in¬
flammatory and subversive material,"
helping to produce a clandestine jour¬
nal called a "chronicle of current
events" (the same name as the most
prominent dissident journal published
in the Soviet Union since 1968), and
forming an illegal group "to over¬
throw the socialist state system."

3

The latter charge is belied by the
fact that all those defendants accused
of leading these so-called subversive
activities are Communist Party mem¬
bers. Some of the defendants may well
have favored the replacement of the
present bureaucratic regime in Czecho¬
slovakia with a more democratic gov¬
ernment, but this is totally different
from supporting the overthrow of state
ownership of the means of production
and a return to capitalism. And it
has nothing to do with conspiring
with the CIA.

The rest of the charges— passing
out leaflets and publishing journals—
amount to simple expression of po¬
litical views. In fact, one of the leaf¬
lets in question merely reminded
voters of their rights to vote for whom¬
ever they pleased, or not to vote at
all, in elections last November. They
also protested that the elections were
being used to legitimatize the loss of
liberties following the Soviet invasion
in 1968.

After his feeble attempt to deny that
the trials amounted to political per¬
secution, Erik Bert pushes aside the
"formalities" and gets down to the CP's
real view on political persecution and
political prisoners. Bert writes:

"Pelikan’s un-class, anti-class ap¬
proach disguises itself in liberal con¬
cern for 'political prisoners.'

"Thus, he wants the 'release of all
political prisoners in the world, in
Greece, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Iran,
the United States, and also in Czecho¬
slovakia and the Soviet Union.’

"For him a 'political prisoner' is a
'political prisoner.' A 'political pris¬
oner' of a socialist country is just
as worthy of support as a 'political
prisoner’ of a capitalist country."

For Erik Bert it is "liberal" to be
concerned about political freedom. He
implies that under socialism there will
be no need for such notions. This cyn¬
ical dismissal of human aspirations
for freedom of thought and expres¬

sion stems from the politics of Stalin¬
ism. It is Stalin and his present-
day heirs in the Kremlin who have
demonstrated the logic of Bert's at¬
titude.

The Stalinist bureaucrats who
usurped power in the Soviet Union
have made socialism synonymous
with dictatorship in the minds of mass¬
es of people. Socialism has been as¬
sociated with forced labor camps,
forced confessions, secret police used
against the population, use of torture
and confinement in mental hospitals,
no rights to protest, no rights for op¬
pressed nationalities, and no political,
artistic, or even scientific freedom.

Before the rise of Stalinism, social¬
ism was associated with freedom and
equality. The Kremlin bureaucrats
and their slavish supporters like Erik
Bert have totally distorted the views
of Marx, Engels, and Lenin on the
question of political freedoms after a
socialist revolution.

Socialism does not only imply state
ownership of the productive forces;
that is only a prerequisite for building
socialism. Socialism also means that
the working class must democratically
control th^ state.

As Marx wrote in the Communist
Manifesto: "The first step in the revo¬
lution by the working class is to raise
the proletariat to the position of ruling
class, to establish democracy."

And workers democracy does not
mean that a bureaucratic clique can
usurp control and claim to run the
state in the interests of the workers —
as is the case in the Soviet Union and
Czechoslovakia. Workers democracy
means that the majority of the people
actually manage the government-
electing their representatives at every
work place and participating in dis¬
cussion and debate on all views con¬
cerning how best to build socialism.
This requires freedom to criticize, free¬
dom to pass out leaflets, freedom to
publish political journals.

In State and Revolution, Lenin elab¬
orated on the Marxist view of workers
democracy. He said that government
posts would be stripped "of every
shadow of privilege, of every appear¬
ance of 'official grandeur."' He stated
that "all officials, without exception,"
should be "elected and subject to re¬
call at any time , their salaries reduced
to 'workingmen's wages.'" (Emphasis
in original.) And this was the basis
on which the first workers state, the
Soviet Union, functioned in its revolu¬
tionary years.

It is this vision — of political free¬
dom for all supporters of socialism

and real participation by the masses
in politics — that many of the Czech
dissidents are fighting for. It is this
vision —which the Czechs call ’’social¬
ism with a human face"—that Erik
Bert condemns as "counterrevolution¬
ary." The bureaucrats of the Husak
regime in Czechoslovakia and the
Brezhnev regime in the Soviet Union
fear that such workers democracy
would spell doom for their position as
privileged parasites on the revolution.
And they are correct.

A future article will deal with other
distortions in the Daily World articles.

WAS 'PRAGUE SPRING ANTISOCIALIST?

by Caroline Lund

The core of Erik Bert's tirade of slan¬
der against The Militant, Trotskyism,
and Jiri Pelikan is his charge that
the 1968 reform movement in Czecho¬
slovakia was "counter-revolutionary"
and "anti-Soviet."

Pelikan was director of Czechoslo¬
vak television at the height of the
1968 upsurge. Under the Dubcek re¬
gime censorship was lifted from the
mass media for the first time, and
media people were in the vanguard of
the struggle for greater democracy.

Erik Bert, however, says that "In
fact, the Prague TV was one of the
main inciters of anti-Soviet hysteria
in 1968."

Later Bert writes: "Czechoslovak
revisionists and their 'liberal' friends
in the West declare that there was no
threat of counter-revolution in Czecho¬
slovakia in 1968. Let's leave that
aside, and consider the revisionists'
program today."

Let's not leave that aside. Let's look
at what happened in Czechoslovakia
in 1968 and why the Soviet Union
and other Warsaw Pact countries saw
fit to send 650,000 troops to occupy
Czechoslovakia—topping even LBJ's
troop commitment in Vietnam.

Alexander Dubcek came to power
on a crest of rising demands of
writers, intellectuals, students, and pro¬
fessionals for greater freedom of
thought and expression. In addition,
he represented a section of the Czecho¬
slovak ruling bureaucracy that
favored more economic decentraliza¬
tion and greater use of market
mechanisms, similar to the path taken
by the bureaucracy in Yugoslavia.

The Dubcek regime madeconcessions
to the popular demands for democratic
rights but attempted to place a lid on
the movement, fearing that it could
get out of hand and turn into a re¬
bellion against the entire privileged,
bureaucratic regime.

The rightist current in the Dubcek
wing of the bureaucracy favored not
only the introduction of more market
relations, but also a rapprochement
with Western imperialist countries. But
such policies — although they should
be condemned—are no worse than the
Soviet summits and trade agreements
with Nixon. There was no procapital¬
ist social layer in Czechoslovakia in
1968 that could have organized a
counterrevolution to take the factories

5

and other nationalized property away'
from the workers and give them back
to private capitalist owners.

The spJit in the Czechoslovak
bureaucracy opened the way for
debate not only within the bureaucracy
but among the students, the in¬
tellectuals, and the masses of workers.
Mass meetings were held through¬
out the country where grievances
poured foTth. Mass pressure forced
the rehabilitation of thousands of Com¬
munist Parly members who had been
victims of Stalinist purge trials in the
1950s. Demands were raised for limita¬
tion of the power of the secret police,
freedom to travel, and the right to
express differences within the Com¬
munist Party.

Erik Bert himself admits that the
revolutionary upsurge against bureau¬
cratic privilege and for democracy
penetrated deeply in the working class.
He writes: "Pelikan complains that the
so-called ’Workers Councils, formed
in 1968 and dissolved in 1969, have
been defined as "instruments of
cou nter-revolution”.'

"But that is precisely what they were.
They were organized by the anti¬
socialist revisionists in order to ex¬
tend their base, from journalists and
intellectuals and students, into the
working class.

"They succeeded in some degree, in
penetrating the working class, arous¬
ing near-hysteria, threatening general
strikes. . .

According to Bert, the Czechoslovak
workers were simply dupes who joined
the movement for proletarian
democracy because they didn’t know
what was best for themselves.

But not only The Militant and Jiri
Pelikan deny that the 1968 reform
upsurge was for counterrevolution.
Readers of the Daily World should
check out the report by George
Wheeler, former Czechoslovak corres¬
pondent for the Daily World.

Wheeler was quoted in the Aug. 31,
L968, issue of the West Coast
CP .paper, the People's World, as say¬
ing, "There was no counter-revolution
here. Only plans for better socialism,
for democratic socialism." Wheeler and
his wife, Eleanor Wheeler, wrote a
formal open letter to the leaders of
the American CP protesting the
Daily World's coverage of the 1968
events.

Later, A1 Richmond, editor of the
People's World, went to Prague on
a fact-finding mission and wrote back
with similar conclusions. Typical of the
opinions Richmond quotes from inter¬
views with workers in Prague was
this one: ’’For six months we had
more democracy than any other
country on earth. . .

In addition, the Soviet invasion on
Aug. 21, 1968, was condemned by
the French, Italian, and Chinese Com¬
munist parties, as well as by many
smaller CPs. The French, Italian, and
British CPs have also criticized this
summer’s frame-up trials of 46 sup¬
porters of the 1968 upsurge.

It is obvious what Erik Bert is re¬
ferring tp when he complains, "Tlie
Western anti-Communist hate cam¬
paign against Czechoslovakia was
joined by certain representatives of
progressive forces in the West. . .

Does Bert feel that these Communist
parties are also in league with the
Central Intelligence Agency, as he im¬
plies about The Militant and Jiri
Pelikan?

In another point, Erik Bert casti¬
gates Pelikan for comparing the Soviet
invasion of Czechoslovakia with U. S.
aggression in Vietnam. Pelikan says:
"You may say that there is a big
difference between American military
aggression in Vietnam and the Soviet
intervention in Czechoslovakia. I
agree, and that is why our people
did not defend itself in arms. But the
substance of the two interventions is

6

the same: to prevent people from de¬
ciding their own destiny."

Bert says this amounts to saying
the Soviet Union is imperialist. "The
Trotskyites say it openly," writes Bert,
"he [Pelikan] says it obliquely."

The Socialist Workers Party has
never considered the Soviet Union im¬
perialist. Imperialism is a stage of
capitalism involving domination of
other countries through the export of
capital. The economy of the Soviet
Union is not capitalist; it is based on
socialized production, which does not
require exporting capital.

Pelikan is correct that what is in¬
volved in both the Soviet invasion
of Czechoslovakia and the U. S. ag¬
gression in Vietnam is violation of the
right of nations to self-determination.

The constitution of the Soviet Union
even proclaims the right of national
minorities within the USSR to separate
if they desire, and yet the Soviet bu¬
reaucrats attempted to prevent the
Czechoslovak people from choosing
their own leadership.

Following the August invasion, the
Trotskyist Fourth International raised

the slogan "Send Soviet tanks to
Vietnam, not Czechoslovakia!" That
is where a real con nterrevolutionary
threat exists, and yet Soviet aid has
been totally inadequate.

Unfortunately, the Trotskyist move¬
ment was not strong in Czechoslovakia
in 1968. And yet Erik Bert links
’’Trotskyites" and "Czechoslovak revi¬
sionists" together as if they were the
same thing. Why does the CP have
such a fear of Trotskyism that it felt
the need to publish these articles?

Leon Trotsky answered this ques¬
tion in the context of explaining why
the Moscow Trials were aimed against
’’Trotskyism.” He wrote:

'The social hatred stored up by the
workers against the bureaucracy [the
Czechoslovak bureaucracy, we could
add, as well as the Soviet] —this is
precisely what from the viewpoint of
the Kremlin clique constitutes’Trotsky¬
ism.' It fears with a deathly and thor¬
oughly well-grounded fear the bond
between the deep but inarticulate in¬
dignation of the workers and the or¬
ganization of the Fourth Internation¬
al."

APPEAL TO ANGELA DAVIS ON BEHALF OF
POLITICAL PRISONERS, by Jiri Pelikan

[The following open letter by Jiri
Pelikan appeared in the August 31,
1972, issue of the New York Re¬
view of Books , the September 4
issue of the Intercontinental Pt'ess,
and the September 8 issue of The
Militant]

Dear A ngela Davis,

You will perhaps be surprised that a
Czechoslovak political exile should feel
the need to write to you. You must
have had many messages from Czecho¬
slovakia, but you missed those from
the people who would have liked to
express their solidarity but could not
do so because their voices are stifled.

because they are in prison, condemned
or awaiting trial.

I am sending you this letter in their
names. I can speak and write because I
have chosen, like many of my compa¬
triots, to continue the struggle in exile.

But I’m also writing to you because,
in spite of our different experiences,
we have a lot in common and 1 think
that you will understand me. You say
that you became a communist because
after seeing the people suffer you
understood that society must be
changed. So did 1. 1 joined the Com¬
munist Party in September, 1939. I
was a student and 1 had seen my

7

country occupied by the German
Nazis. I wanted to fight for freedom
and to change a system which pro¬
duces wan and oppression.

You have lived through the painful
experience of prison. So have l. Virile
the Gestapo hunted me, my parents
were taken as hostages: and my moth¬
er never came back from prison. I
know as well as you what is meant by
repression, discrimination, and suffer¬
ing. Like you, I went into the revolu¬
tionary movement convinced that so¬
cialism can create a more just society
for the majority of men.

The difference between us consists
only in the fact that after thirty years
as a militant, in October, 1969, 1 was
expelled from the party along with
some half million Czech and Slovak
communists simply because we refused
to consider the occupation of our
small socialist country by a foreign
power, itself “socialist,” as “fraternal
aid.”

You may say that there is a big
difference between American military
aggression in Vietnam and the Soviet
intervention in Czechoslovakia. I agree,
and that is why our people did not
defend itself in arms. But the sub¬
stance of the two interventions is the
same: to prevent people from deciding
their own destiny. You are for the
immediate withdrawal of American
troops from Vietnam. So am 1. But
why, four years after the intervention,
are there still 80,000 Soviet soldiers in
Czechoslovakia, in spite of the agree¬
ments between Bonn and Moscow and
Warsaw, in spite of the “consolidation”
many times proclaimed by Husik and
Brezhnev?

1 was delighted to read that after
your release you said you would fight
for the freedom of all the political
prisoners in the world. I hope you will
do so for political prisoners in capital¬
ist countries, but also in East European

countries, especially Czechoslovakia
and the Soviet Union.

You may object that here too there
is a difference: that in the United
Slates and ether Western countries it is
“progressives” who are persecuted,
whereas in the Soviet Union and
Czechoslovakia il is mainly “antisocial-
ist” elements, to use the language of
official propaganda. But Angela, ask
for the list of political prisoners in
Czechoslovakia and read their biogra¬
phies: you’ll find the overwhelming
majority of them are communists or
socialists.

J should like to recall a few, mostly
veteran communists: Milan Hiibl, rec¬
tor of the party university and member
of the Central Committee; Jaroslav
Sabata, psychologist and member of
the Central Committee; Alfred Cem£,
worker, regional party secretary in
Brno and member of the Central
Committee; Jaroslav Litera, worker and
secretary of the Prague city party
committee; General Vaclav Prchlik,
member of the Central Committee and
of Parliament; Karel BartoSek, histori¬
an; Petr Uhl, teacher; Jiff Lederer and
Vladimir ’ Neprah, journalists; Ota
Kfizanovskf, teacher in the party
school; and hundreds of lesser-known
names-intellectuals, students, workers,
priests, and trade unionists.

Among the prisoners are two com¬
munist journalists who worked for a
long time as correspondents in your
country: Karel Kyncl for the radio and
Jiff Hochman for the party daily Rude
prdvo. From them we learned to know
and to support the struggle of the
American progressives against racism,
McCarthyism, and the Vietnam war.
Today they have both been in prison
foT six months, and both are 01:
Hochman with a serious form of
tuberculosis and Kyncl with an ulcer.
They, have no contact with the outside
world, inadequate medical care, no

8

chance to choose or to consult their
lawyers, no knowledge of when they
will be tried. Their families, like those
of most other political prisoners, are in
a particularly difficult situation be¬
cause their wives are prevented from
working. Moreover, to collect money
for the families of prisoners is con¬
sidered “approval of criminal acts” and
is therefore punishable by imprison¬
ment.

Do you, Angela, consider this situa¬
tion normal in a country that calls
itself “socialist”? I have read about
and seen on television the many mes¬
sages of solidarity you received in
prison and after your release. I was
proud to think that there were people
who were not indifferent to the fate of
others; at the same time I had to think
with sadness and bitterness about my
friends imprisoned in Prague who can¬
not receive expressions of solidarity
and are deprived of moral encourage¬
ment.

But, Angela, you above all have the
moral right to demand of the Czech
authorities what has been until now
denied to all journalists-permission to
visit the Ruzyn Prison in Prague and to
interview Karel Kyncl and Jiff Hoch¬
man, both of whom speak English.
Listen to them and draw your own
conclusions, but above all try to help
them so they can defend themselves
against their accusers as you have been
able to do in your own country.

But among the Czech political pri¬
soners there are also noncommunists;
you will find Catholics, Evangelists,
Jews, and also those opposed to social¬
ism. This must not be a pretext for
indifference to their fate. In Czech¬
oslovakia we have paid dearly for our
failure to understand that liberty is not
divisible and that injustice toward
opponents will in the end turn itself
back on those who commit injustice. If
liberty is taken away from some of the
people it will soon die for the rest.

Bat prison is not the only or the
main form of repression in Czecho¬
slovakia. Tens of thousands of com¬
munists and other citizens have noth¬
ing to live on, being deprived of work
for their political convictions. The best
writers are condemned to silence, the¬
aters that disobey are closed, the
directors who made the fame of the
new Czechoslovak cinema are out of
work or are forced to leave the
country. The theaters do not know
what to put on apart from the classics
and escapist comedies; the Ministry of
Culture does not recommend anti¬
fascist works because the public might
find “dangerous parallels” which would
lead to “provocative applause.”

Hundreds of thousands of citizens
have been eliminated from public life.
For the “sins” of their parents children
may no longer study, and parents are
punished for the negative attitudes of
their children. Investigations are carried
out as far as three generations back, to
encourage denunciations.

Some people are overcome by fear
and resignation. Not all have the will
and the courage to defend themselves
as you have done. But we too have
many Angela Davises and Soledad
brothers, though they remain un¬
known. The best Czech writers have
refused to serve the regime; after they
were forbidden to publish their books
in Czechoslovakia they published
abroad. Now the government has ap¬
plied to them taxes and regulations
that allow them only 5 percent of
their royalties-less than is sufficient to
live on for a month. The regime hopes
that they will stop writing, become
tired, give in. And if a writer tells a
foreign journalist what is happening he
can be condemned to three years in
prison for spreading information
abroad that is “damaging to the in¬
terests of the State”!

The government statement announc¬
ing these measures makes it clear that

9

they are directed against such writers
as Ludvik Vaculik, Milan Kundeia,
Pavel Kohout, Vaclav Havel, and Ivan
Klima, against the Marxist philosopher
Karel Kosik (with whom you would, I
think, quickly arrive at mutual under¬
standing), against the historian Robert
Kalivoda, and even against Jean Pro-
ch£zka a writer now dead. We are one
of the special countries in which
writers cannot join the Union of
Writers and all literary journals have
been suppressed. And what a rich
and progressive literature we once had!

Hundreds of professors and teaching
assistants have been fired from the
University because of their political
attitudes and today are working as
laborers, taxi drivers, porters. Eighteen
hundred journalists have been excluded
from their union and prevented from
working as journalists. The Student
Union has been dissolved and most of
its leaders condemned or forbidden to
carry on studies. And most of them,
Angela, are, like you, communists.

It is not only a revolt of intellectuals
or young people, as is sometimes
asserted by Western left-wingers to
justify their silence or hesitation. Four
weeks ago in Prague the congress of
the “normalized 0 trade unions (purged
of more than 50,000 cadres since
1969) annulled the decisions of the
preceding congress, including the right
to strike. The workers are not allowed

to have independent tr ade unions or to
Fight for their demands or to protest
against the dismissal of comrades,
against production schedules and bad
working conditions. The Workers’
Councils, formed in 1968 and dissolved
in 1969, have been defined by the
party leadership as “instruments of
counterrevolution.” Isn’t that absurd
for a so-called “working-class” state?

When I describe all that, without the
slightest pleasure but with shame and
sorrow, to my Western friends, they
reply that of course it’s a disagreeable

situation but that one mustn't say so
too openly so as not 1o “play into the
hands of socialism’s enemies,” and that
one must start from “a class position.”
But what “class'” can benefit if people
are arrested without trial, if trade
unions are enslaved, if all free discus¬
sion is suppressed, if socialist countries
accuse each other of imperialism, be¬
trayal, revisionism, and invade each
other by turns?

If they mean the working class, then
that of Czechoslovakia has made it
clear that it does not consider the
present regime socialist.

That is precisely why you, Angela,
and the millions of people who sup¬
ported you and believe in a more just
socialist society with more freedom,
can no longer be silent about the
violation of human rights in the coun¬
tries that call themselves “socialist”
and by their behavior discredit social¬
ism more than any reactionary propa¬
ganda.

That is why I suggest to you and to
those who supported you sincerely,
not just for easy demagogic propa¬
ganda: %

1 ) demand the release of all political
prisoners in the world, in Greece,
Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Iran, the
United States, and also in Czechoslo¬
vakia and the Soviet Union;

2 ) protest against the violation of
human rights-especially the right to
freedom of expression and organiza¬
tion, to strike, to emigrate, to work
and to study without discrimination—
throughout the world;

3 ) demand the immediate with¬
drawal of American troops from Viet¬
nam and of Soviet troops from Czech¬
oslovakia.

I assure you, Angela, that not only 1
but many other people are waiting for
a reply, or better still for you to act. 1
don’t say that on it depends the fate
of our imprisoned comrades and the

10

struggle for the freedom ribd inde¬
pendence of our people. We learned in
1938 that at the moment oi foreign
aggression we are always alone and

nine count akb»Ye all on our own
& length. But we should be happy to
have you with us, as we hive been
vith you.

WESTERN CPs ON CZECHOSLOVAK TRIALS
AUSTRALIA; Trials Hurt Socialist Cause

[The following statement appeared in
the August 8-14 issue of the Tribune ,
which reflects the views of the Com¬
munist party of Australia.]

SYDNEY: On behalf of the executive
of the Communist Party of Australia,
the party's national secretary, Mr.
Laurie Aarons, this week released a
press statement on the current series
of political trials in Czechoslovakia.

Full text of the statement follows:

The Communist Party of Australia
expresses deep concern at the trial
and conviction of 31 Czechoslo¬
vakians on obviously political
charges.

The C. P. A. protests at the harsh
sentences imposed, going as high as
six and a half years, on vague
charges of "antistate activity" and "sub¬
version."

The charges seem to arise mainly
from publication of leaflets, includ¬
ing an appeal for voters to exercise
their constitutional right to cast in¬
formal ballots at the 197 1 parliamen¬
tary elections. This makes the severity
of the sentences quite inexplicable and
unjustified.

Even more disturbing is that the
charges were brought at all. These
are political trials directed at com¬
munists who were excluded by ad¬
ministrative means from the Commu¬
nist Party after the August, 1968 in¬
tervention in Czechoslovakia. They
include former Central Committee
members, secretaries of city commit¬
tees, students and youth leaders, and

others whose devotion to socialism is
unquestioned. These people have been
removed from their positions, dis¬
missed from tlieir work and discrim¬
inated against in employment because
of their political beliefs; now they are
imprisoned.

The Communist Party of Australia
protests against these political trials,
which still continue. It calls for the
release of all those imprisoned, can¬
cellation of the sentences and the drop¬
ping of all further proceedings.

The prosecutions contradict Czech¬
oslovakian Party leader Gustav Hu-
sak's explicit assurances that there
would be no political trials. It is a
sad commentary that the harshest
sentence so far was imposed upon
Dr. [Milan] Hubl, former Central Com¬
mittee member and director of the
Higher Party School. Dr. Hubl was
mainly responsible for the release and
rehabilitation of Dr. Husak, himself
jailed for eight years under the No¬
votny regime in the 'fifties on false
charges of "bourgeois nationalism"
and working for the restoration of
capitalism.

These political trials damage Czech¬
oslovakia's international reputation
and the socialist cause which is used
to justify these actions. In our view,
the suppression of political views in
general, and these trials in particu¬
lar, are a serious departure from so¬
cialist principles.

The trials will not suppress the
aspirations of the Czech and Slovak
peoples for genuine national indepen¬
dence and for a real socialist democ-

11

racy. In fact, the trials are only a
symptom of tHe serious problem aris¬
ing from the so-called "normalisation"
imposed after intervention by armed
forces of the USSR and other Warsaw
Pact nations.

[In the next issue of the Tribune ,
dated August 15-21, the campaign
against the Czechoslovak trials was
continued with the following editorial, j

The article on this page sets out
facts and circumstances relating to the
recent and continuing series of court
trials of a large number of political
activists, many of them communists
of long standing, in Czechoslovakia.
Tribune last week published a state¬
ment of strong protest by the Com¬
munist Party of Australia against these
political trials.

The Czechoslovak people, especially
its communists — and indeed the cause
of socialism throughout the world —
have already suffered gravely from
political trials. From the beginning
of the 1950s many tens of thousands
were jailed or executed in Czechoslo¬
vakia following summary or elabo¬
rately staged court proceedings used
to dispose of political critics —real or
imagined —of the leadership at the time
in Prague or Moscow. This was the
direct line of descent from Stalin's
purges of the '30s. In early 1968,
following the democratic overthrow of
the authoritarian and bureaucratic
Novotny, there was hope that the path
of socialist democratic development
had been found — but the march of the
Warsaw Pact armies abruptly ended
that. Since then, the leadership in
Czechoslovakia appears to have
steadily passed under more and more
authoritarian influences. Now Prague
is seeing something very reminiscent
of the 1950s and apparently for
similar reasons.

It is claimed in Rude Pravo, organ
of the Communist Party of Czecho¬

slovakia, that tliese are trials of
people, not for their political views,
but foi breaches of socialist laws, for
"anti-socialist activity," and thus it is
not a ’’return to the fifties."

Why then are we seeing a contrived
mass trial after more than a year's
delay, instead of individual prosecu¬
tions at the time of alleged breaches
of the law? Why, if the breaches were
clear and serious, is there such little
info rmation rele as ed ab on tthe evidence
and other detail of the trials that the
Italian, French, and British communist
parties have criticised this aspect? Why
the refusal of a visa to a British
Labour MP seeking to observe the
proceedings? In short, why is there
such a closed, defensive atmosphere
around the trials?

In answering such questions we are
driven to conclude that the trend is
indeed back towards the political per¬
secutions of the 'fifties when, also, the
stock charge in such cases was "anti¬
socialist breaches of the law.” The cur¬
rent events are a far cry from the CPCz
First Secretary Husak's statement of
June 2, 1969 —"Today is no longer
the 'fifties^ and no one needs fear their
return" —and his many similar
pledges.

But we are living in the 1970's and
many things HAVE changed. Revolu¬
tionaries throughout the world, includ¬
ing very many communists, have
determined that never again will they
be deluded into condoning the use of
coercive powers of the proletarian
state — necessary as these are for
defence against real capitalist class
counter-revolution — to silence debate
among socialists.

We repeat today what CPA national
secretary Laurie Aarons said at the
June 1969 international conference of
communist parties in Moscow: "If we
say openly that the August, 1968, in¬
tervention was wrong, it is not because
we want to intervene in the internal

12

affairs of the parties which made the
decision ... we say again that the
intervention harmed our cause, the
struggle for a socialist world."

Our protest today, far from seeking
to intervene in Czechoslovakian
internal afairs (for that would be
futile as well as a violation of com¬
munist principles) is above all an as¬
sertion that when we, Australian com¬
munists, speak today of socialism we
mean something very different in im¬
portant respects from what is being
displayed in Prague.

We ourselves have already demon¬
strated in practice in our own party
and its international relations our firm
belief that differences of view in the
on-going socialist movement must and
can be unravelled by means of open
and persistent discussion, debate, and
the testing of diverse theories in the
practice of mass struggle.

While not pretending that after
capitalism has been abolished the
problems of serious political debate
are easy to solve, we declare that
Australian communists will continue
to strive for a socialist society in which,
alongside socialised ownership of pro¬
duction, economic institutions and the
media under fully democratic forms
of workers' control and self-manage¬
ment, there will be consistent promo¬
tion of humanist values, and demo¬
cratic control and decision-making in
all spheres, as the basic antidote to
the bureaucratic tendencies revealed in
all human societies so far.

Such a socialist society must, of
course, safeguard its basis of socialist
production relations, following the

transfer of all main means of produc¬
tion, distribution and exchange from
capitalist profit-making ownership to
socialized ownership for public use.
This will be necessary as long as cap¬
italist forces retain organised strength.
But the trials in Prague are showing
once again that the mere establish¬
ment of such a socialist base of new
production relations does not yet con¬
stitute or ensure a truly developed
socialist society. The trials are a vin¬
dication of the CPA view that, at their
present stage of development, such so¬
cieties are more correctly described as
"socialist-based."

On September 18, 1968, a few weeks
after the armed intervention in Czech¬
oslovakia by the Warsaw Pact gov¬
ernments — Tribune editorially stated:
"The issues involved in the Czecho¬
slovakian events will long be impor¬
tant to the theory and practice of so¬
cialism."

Those in Australia and elsewhere
who have attempted to sweep these
matters under the carpet and pretend
they did not really matter are once
again proved wrong. They will be
hard put today to justify or excuse
the events in Prague, though they will
probably try, in further demonstra¬
tion of their subordination to long-
discredited concepts.

We take the stand which we believe
to be shared by the majority of Aus¬
tralian workers —the revolutionary
social transformation of this country
by the workers must be accompanied
by adherence to the genuinely social¬
ist principles of free flow of informa¬
tion and debate and full democratic
control of decision-making processes.

13

NETHERLANDS: 'Nothing to Do With Justice'

[The following article, titled "The
Trials,” appeared in the August 5 is¬
sue of De Waarheid, which reflects
the views of the Dutch Communist
party. It was signed by Joop Wolff.]

The Czech press agency CTK is
sending out ambiguous reports about
trials now taking place in the coun¬
try. Even relying on the reports of
CTK itself about the prosecution and
sentencing—to terms of one-half to
six and a half years in prison—of
persons on charges of distributing
leaflets, it is clear that these trials
have nothing to do with justice.

Certainly not with socialist justice.

Some remarkable facts surround this
business of trials. Bilak, one of the
secretaries in the present leadership
of the Czechoslovak Communist par¬
ty, has refused to offer any expla¬
nations in regard to the bitter com¬
plaint of the French Communist party
that the trials are being pursued de¬
spite the assurances given to a mem¬
ber of the French CP who was sent
to Prague some time ago that there
would be no trials.

As for the Communists in the Neth¬
erlands, their attitude has been clear
and is still clear now.

Our party has never seen any value
in demarches which the masses do
not support.

Our party has taken a clear stand
in all respects. Since the shocking
events of 1968, the Dutch Communist
party has maintained no relations with
the Communist Party of Czechoslo¬
vakia. An invitation a year ago to
take part in a so-called international
conference in Karlovy Vary was to be
led by Novotny — the man who was,
in his own country, held responsible
by the masses for the distortion of
socialism — was turned down una mb ig-

uously and forcefully by the Dutch
Communist party.

As Dutch Communists, we maintain
that we want to have nothing, abso¬
lutely nothing, to do with such prac¬
tices as the trials reported by CTK
and that we do not want our high
opinion of socialism to be tainted by
these practices.

In the August 26, 1968.declaration
of the party leadership we stated our
solidarity with the attempt "to eradi¬
cate the distortion of socialism that
has grown up under Novotny in favor
of a progressive course, a broaden¬
ing of democracy, for a human so¬
cialism.” And we added this: "We are
firmly convinced that it is impossible
to halt the development of this type
of socialism and that any attempts
in this direction are doomed to
failure."

These words are still valid today
and are especially appropriate.

For us, Dutch Communists, the con¬
cept of socialism is indissolubly linked
with democracy, with the will of the
majority of the people, and with the
independence of the country.

In a CTK interview Bilak stated
that he considers any protests or con¬
cern voiced against the present trials
to be merely "attempts to divert at¬
tention from the crimes against the
Vietnamese people and the killing of
Irish children."

It Is certainly true that Bilak's at¬
titude and the trials themselves, as
reported by CTK, give well-known
enemies of socialism an opportunity

to slander socialism as a social sys¬
tem and to cover up and minimize
the American crimes in Vietnam and
the evils of capitalism elsewhere.

This only makes matters worse —
and this at a moment when it is ne¬
cessary to weld together the unity of

14

the masses in solidarity with the peo- with imperial ist crimes. The recent dec
pie of Vietnam. Uiations from Prague seem completely

In this, the stakes are really high; unaware of this,
they concern the settling of accounts

ITALY: Trials Are Cause for Concern

[The following article, "Prague Tri¬
als 'Cause for Political Concern,'" ap¬
peared in the July 22 issue of L'Unita,
organ of the Italian Communist par¬
ty.]

Three trials have been going on
in Prague this week against people
accused of "conspiring to engage in
subversive activity against the repub¬
lic and its international interests." We
have reported these trials of party
leaders and intellectuals previously
and we now do so again.

According to information provided
by CTK, the accused "had prepared
and mimeographed various publica¬
tions of an antistate nature which they
had distributed together with other
slanderous publications printed in
hostile countries.” This was the main
accusation against the group, to
which belonged the two people who
received the heaviest sentences yester¬
day-six years and five and a half
years imprisonment. The sentence was
pronounced in accordance with the
laws of the Czech state.

Our position on the whole Czecho¬
slovak problem is well known and
was confirmed at our thirteenth Con¬
gress. We have criticized and continue
to criticize all those actions and events
that are contrary to the principles that
we consider common to our move¬
ment. We do not consider in any way
legitimate the criticisms and accusa¬
tions raised against the socialist coun¬
tries by those reactionary and conser¬
vative groups which are guilty in their
own countries of the gravest crimes
against the workers and humanity.

Further, we have always stressed our
desire not to interfere in the domestic
affairs of the socialist countries and
communist parties. Having said this,
however, it is obvious, in our opinion,
that the trials which have taken place
in Prague do not concern solely in¬
ternal affairs, but raise questions and
problems for us also.

First, little is known about these
trials because the real public was ex¬
cluded. This is certainly detrimental
to anyone who would like to form a
considered and informed opinion; but,
even more than that, it casts a dark
shadow on the legal proceedings.
There should be no fear of publicity
concerning the crimes which are by
their nature manifest or considered to
be so.

Second, to reach the point of trials
and sentences on the basis of the facts

as they have been officially announced
is certainly an alarming political sign.

It should be possible to answer ac¬
cusations of "publications of an anti-
state nature" and "slanderous publi¬
cations" by a reasoned defense and
public controversy, by an ideological
and political counterattack, and by a
campaign where truth confronts pos¬
sible slander.

To resort in these cases to admin¬
istrative and judicial methods does
not resolve matters but aggravates
them. This is precisely what strikes
us most, as an indication of a situa¬
tion that has not been resolved and
of problems that are certainly not
easy, but not for this reason less se¬
rious or less grave.

15

CHINA, THE SOVIET UNION
AND RELATED TOPICS

Behind China's Great Cultural Revolution
by Peng Shu-tse et al. .75

China and the USA: Behind the Great Turnabout
by Dick Roberts .60

The Chinese Revolution

by Leon Trotsky .50

Dynamics of Antibureaucratic Struggle in the USSR
and Eastern Europe, by Gus Horowitz .60

The Invasion of Czechoslovakia
edited by Les Evans .65

Moscow vs. Peking

by George Novack .25

Nixon's Moscow and Peking Summits
by Joseph Hansen and Caroline Lund .60

Peaceful Coexistence and World Revolution
by Ernest Mandel ’ .60

The Revolution Betrayed

by Leon Trotsky 2.95

Revolutionary Marxist Students in Poland Speak Out
by Jacek Kuron et al. 1.25

The Stalin School of Falsification
by Leon Trotsky 3.45

The Third International After Lenin
by Leon Trotsky 3.45

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